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Is Toyota No Longer a Guiding Light?
Dear Gemba Coach: I'm the lean manager of a mid-sized company, and have been getting teased by many folks about Toyota's…
Read article Toyota Troubles: Fighting the Demons of Complexity
An interview with Professor Takahiro Fujimoto, Manufacturing Management Research Center, University of Tokyo
Read article Lean for the Long Term
I've now been thinking about lean continuously for thirty years, since the fall of 1979 when my MIT bosses asked…
Read article Robert Cole’s Observations on the Liker-Shook Dialogue regarding Toyota’s Quality Crisis
I have previously introduced readers of this column to Robert Cole, Professor Emeritus at Berkeley, former long-time professor at the…
Read article How Does Lean Apply In a Job Shop?
Dear Gemba Coach: In our job shop we make high precision modules and tools, work that involves a great deal…
Read article Lean Project Improvements, Federal Aviation Administration, Flight Standards District Office, Boston
Peter O’Leary, principal aviation safety inspector and a member of a lean improvement team at an FAA office near Boston,…
Read article Toyota Trouble: A Dialogue with Jeff Liker (AKA the Coffee Shop Talks)
With the appearance of Toyota's various quality and recall problems, Jeff Liker and I have been meeting in coffee shops…
Read article Lean in the IT Department
Dear Gemba Coach: My company has been doing lean for a while now, and I've been asked to start lean…
Read article Back to Work
Only a month ago I wrote about going beyond Toyota. And in light of the last month's events, I suppose…
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Don’t Gloat Too Quickly – If This Could Happen to Toyota, It Could Happen to You …
Okay, so how do you respond to a "crisis"? My recent encouragement to Toyota President Akio Toyoda that "It isn't the…
Read article The Business Case for Kaizen
Dear Gemba Coach: I can see the benefits kaizen has brought our company, but find it hard to formulate the…
Read article Freedom
Dear Gemba Coach: I work for a large governmental organization that has decided to do lean. I have been interested in…
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